


That Personal Touch

by Catchclaw



Series: Mental Mimosa [103]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Office, Boss/Employee Relationship, M/M, Pining, Professional Jealousy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 07:34:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15601434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: The problem with Thor is that he’s a good boss.





	That Personal Touch

**Author's Note:**

> Prompts: Boss/employee and You can’t keep discouraging yourself the moment something goes wrong. Prompts from this [generator](http://colormayfade.tumblr.com/generator).

The problem with Thor is that he’s a good boss.

It’d be easier for Loki to hate the man if he were a jerk, the sort of guy who hollers or points fingers when things aren’t going right. But Thor’s not like that; he treats all of his employees with the same thoughtful kindness that he affords their clients, even the difficult ones who shout every month when it’s time to pay their bill. It’s not simply that he’s nice; Loki can’t abide _nice_. No, Thor is considerate and generous, quick to praise and gentle but firm when a talking-to is required. He is--and this is really what burns Loki up--exceedingly good at his job and far better at it than Loki could have hoped to be.

The right man, as it were, got the job. And damn if Loki is having trouble staying mad about it.

It’s been six months since he was passed over, six months since Thor took over, and it’s starting to wear on him, the amount of energy it takes to be snide to his boss, to be chilly, to send every signal in their personal interactions that he wants said interaction to end at once. The difficult part of that, of course, is that they have to interact _constantly_ , or so it seems to Loki; at least a half a dozen times each day, he’ll look up from his monitor to see Thor hovering politely in his doorway, question or query in hand. This is the other thing: Thor can’t abide email as a means of communication, like to hem and haw (nicely) about there being so much lost between he and the screen, so he prefers to talk to face to face. If he’s really pressed, he might call, but he doesn’t have the decency to bombard Loki with a dozen emails a day, like Heimdal used to, or even to send a freaking text. No, Thor likes that personal touch, likes to read body language and allow his own to be read, and so Loki not only has to work for the man, he has to talk to him day in and day out and even six months of the icy, get out of my office treatment have deterred his new boss from beaming every time Loki sees him, from greeting him with that booming voice and disarming fucking charm.

Because this, _this_ , is the real problem with Thor Odinson: Loki likes him. He likes the big, blond redwood of a man so much he could scream. Would be happy to, repeatedly, if only Thor would reach out and give him a reason.

He dreams about Thor, wakes up with his shoulders aching as if Thor’s been holding him down, pinning him at the hips and groaning into his ear, saying the sorts of delightful trash that Loki imagines must spill out of that beautiful mouth when Thor gets going, when he’s lost in the pursuit of pleasure, and oh, what a chase Loki would give him. He sits in interminable, mind-glazing meetings and imagines Thor’s hands on his skin, broad and tanned against the pale turn of Loki’s stomach, then turning up like covetous wings over Loki’s ribs. He listens to Thor give pep talks and atta boys around the office and pictures those lips spread around his cock rather than buzzwords like _team player_ and _appreciation_ and _effective_   _agent of cultural change_.

Yeah, there are a lot of things Loki would change about his interactions with Thor if he could figure out how to slough off the last six months of icy reception, of vague professional tolerance, and start all over again.

Part of his initial resistance, he tells himself, sprang from a natural place: the job Thor took was Loki's, long promised. He’d been with Vanheim for ten years, cap and gown still practically in hand, the ink on his college diploma barely dry. For the first few, he’d been a drone, working up copy and fetching coffee and spending far too much time babysitting the copy machine. But then the owner, Heimdal, had taken an interest in him, seen at last that his true talent lay not in crafting words but in leadership, in harnessing the power of others to work towards a common goal. The old man had taken Loki under his wing and given him access to new kinds of knowledge, new sorts of opportunities; had seen to it that Loki not only learned the firm’s business inside and out but also that he came to be an expert in the field more broadly. Theirs was a small firm, it was true, less than an 100 employees, but Heimdal had a vision, one he knew he would not be around to see to completion--the siren call of the golf course, of retirement, of life on some broad, sandy beach had long since drowned out ambition. Loki, though, Loki, he would be the one to carry the company over the threshold, to fulfill the vision that Heimdal had laid out for himself, for the firm, many years before.

Except that when the time finally came for Heimdal to leave, to pack up his golf clubs once and for all, he hadn’t chosen Loki to succeed him; no, he’d gone outside of the company-- _outside_ of it, the fucking nerve!--and annointed Thor instead.

Thor, who’d worked in New York and London. Thor, who was so fetching that when he walked in the front doors for his interview, jaws dropped from reception through the cube farm all the way to the executive suite. Thor, who wasn’t a dick about being gorgeous, who didn’t wield it over people like a club. Indeed, there were days, dark fucking hours, when Loki was convinced the man had no idea how lovely he was; that Thor looked in the mirror each morning and saw a mere mortal, not a blond statuesque god. Why the hell such a creature would give up the high life to come here, to freaking Minneapolis, Minnesota, just to run roughshod over the plan Loki had carefully laid out for his life, Loki had no goddamn clue. Oh, he listened to office gossip--something about a love affair gone south, or wanting to escape the stress of a high-wire firm, or to be near family in the area, blah blah blah--but real answers would require direct communication, would require talking, and gods forbid he give Thor that sort of satisfaction.

Never mind that knowing the answer would satisfy Loki, too.


End file.
